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Oh, god. I love the internet.

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* x_los wrote Eighth Doctor/goosnake!Master. And it’s… actually kind of awesome? If you enjoy crackfic, I highly recommend it.

* I. Um. I think I want to see Twilight. I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW. But… it’s just… you know… Robert Pattinson is really really cute!

Apparently somewhere inside me there still lurks a twelve year old girl, whose Pretty!Boy!Vampire! alert has just been triggered. I will have to hide my face in shame and sneak into the theater hoping that no one I know will recognize me. Or at least claim that I’m there only to snark. :P

* I saw the new James Bond this weekend and was disappointed. I’m all for emotional continuity, but it didn’t feel like the movie really went anywhere. Nothing made a big impression, and I was mostly bored. Apparently I’m one of the three human beings on the planet who do not find Daniel Craig attractive, so without a compelling story there just wasn’t much to hold my interest. Casino Royale was so much better. :(

* I just read this book called The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, about a Jesuit expedition to Alpha Centauri (seriously). It was brilliantly written, but I didn’t love it.

( spoilers for The Sparrow and for the Lymond Chronicles (possibly offensive to religious types) )

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The Naming of Things by ariafic. This is the best Theta/Koschei fic I’ve ever read, although I’d actually say it’s more “the becoming of the Master” than a Theta/Koschei romance. But since the Doctor is always at the center of the Master’s existence, their relationship is central here.

This story is brilliantly written, sweet, chilling, and, in the end, heartbreaking. Everything is so in-character and well-developed, especially Koschei’s descent into madness, and how he and Theta each fail the other. These two are so my OTP; nothing gets to me more than childhood friends who fall out and can’t put the pieces back together no matter how much they still love each other.

*sniffles* Now I need to go read something really fluffy where the Doctor and the Master live happily ever after.

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I’ve been sorting through the, um, several hundred tabs I had open on Firefox (because it’s really not a good idea to have 300 tabs open…) and, anyway, I bring three amazing Doctor/Master fic recs:

* Burning Ground by bagheera_san. Doctor + Master + Hindu mythology.

* Resonance Structures by mercurial_wit. Doctor + Master + chemistry.

Which continues in…

* Uncertainty Principles. Doctor + Master + physics.

These really put to shame the notion that fanfiction is nothing but romantic wish-fulfillment written by fourteen-year-olds. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that; there are far worse things fourteen-year-olds could be doing than writing. But I love that there’s so much more to the possibilities of fanfic.)

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I had the most awesome Saturday. jaydk and I went to Philadelphia for Projekt Revolution.

( Good friends, yummy food, street fairs, Chris Cornell, and Linkin Park )

What else I've been up to:

( I liked The Dark Knight, but I didn't *love* it )

( I've been catching up on Due South )

( My Doctor Who fannish experience has been very Doctor/Master centric lately )

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I’m mostly rolling my eyes at “Journey’s End” fix-it fic (because, y’know, I thought it was brilliant and doesn’t need to be “fixed”) but I have been enjoying dwseason5. Mostly because it’s got the Doctor, the Master, and subtext, and what could be better than that? (Well, to be written well, which this is also.)

I finally started watching some of the old Doctor/Master episodes. I don’t think I’ll have anything new to say about a serial that aired over 35 years ago, but I’ll give you my reactions to “Terror of the Autons” anyway. I’ll warn in advance that this is filtered through my RABID and largely tongue-in-cheek Doctor/Master filter.

( There is nothing in this episode to convince me that the Doctor and the Master *aren't* playing one long convoluted intergalactic sex game )

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* selenak has hopeful thoughts on Donna’s ending in relation to “The Unicorn and the Wasp.”

* versaphile has a brilliant analysis of the Doctor’s morality and his views of humanity

* and I’m counting on her fic Praxis to keep me interested in this fandom until the show comes back. (No pressure or anything. :P) But seriously, it’s the best study I’ve read of how and why the Doctor is who he is. Plus, lots of hot Doctor/Master sex. You really cannot go wrong there.

* orange_crushed wrote hilarious and wonderful Doctor/Rose post-”Journey’s End” fic.

(I know there’s a tons and tons of good fic popping up right now, but I’m mostly trying to get through the meta and sort out my thoughts first before I jump into fic.)

* And really hilarious Doctor Who hed-is-pastede-on-yay wank over at Fandom Wank.

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Why is London After Midnight playing in NYC the same night as the Cure? I would’ve liked to see them. That’s just weird.

I went to Ikea last night. Dude. I felt like I was trapped in the hedge maze from Harry Potter 4. It took me two hours to get out of there, dodging strollers and shopping carts and trying not to get distracted by all the shiny things. And I missed Vegan Drinks. :(

( I chose a different bookshelf )

Did I mention that I got my plane tickets for DragonCon? Yep, I'm going. I might want to hide under a burka, but dammit, I can't miss DragonCon. I always have so much fun there. I wonder what the Doctor Who panels are like... (the good thing about DragonCon is that, if they suck, I can always find something else entertaining to do).

I tried out that Wordle thing with my "Midnight" review. Nifty!



Oh, and here's a short post-"Midnight" fic rec: Humans by rosa_acicularis. Very insightful look at the various characters.

(Anyone have more post-"Midnight" fic recs? That episode is practically begging to be explored further in fanfic. And dammit, I need something to entertain me seeing as 95% of the links on my flist are off-limits due to spoilers.)

Also: a yummylicious John Simm picspam from lozenger8. :)

Other nifty links: really interesting Doctor/Master discussion at best_enemies and two compilations of Doctor/Rose squee here and here.

(I don't know why I love Doctor/Rose so much in canon--romantically or as best friends, either interpretation is fine with me--but am completely uninspired to read about them in fanfic. Maybe because their relationship is already a lot like what you get in fanfic--full of character moments and bonding and actual happiness and it's already got such a perfect ending that I'm not inspired to seek out more? Or maybe because my interpretation tends to differ from the mainstream in that I don't care whether they're having sex or not, and I get kind of sick thinking about them "settling down"? Whereas I can't get enough Doctor/Master, maybe because the stuff I'm interested in there is always heavily hinted at in canon, but it never goes as far as I'd like. It's just the kind of relationship that fanfic was invented for. Thus the fact that I could probably read Doctor/Master fic forever without getting bored.)

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DAMMIT, SPOILERS EVERYWHERE!

Mustnotclickmustnotclickmustnotclickmustnotclickmustnotclick…

I don’t know how long I can hold out! Now would be a really good time to go hibernate in a cave somewhere with no internet access.

Let’s talk about something completely unrelated to the SPOILERS THAT ARE CALLING ME. Hmm.

Oh! I chose some furniture.

( furniture and other random stuff )

More distractions; have some recs:

* selenak wrote a great post comparing "Midnight" and "Voyage of the Damned." (I could swear I read a good one somewhere comparing it to "42," also, but now I don't remember where it was.)

* lordshiva wrote the Doctor and Anya from Buffy! So much win.

* I adored the New York Times article about Russell T Davies. So far three people I know in real life have come up to me to chatter about it, too.

* I read this entire book about the 1977 blackout in NYC. I'm weird. I clicked on it while researching the history of Bushwick and ended up completely fascinated by the sociology, psychology, and history it explores. (Plus it's fascinating because I had a great time during the 2003 blackout--I got drunk in the gay bar across the street and bonded with my soon-to-be-friend Anne, who stayed at my place rather than walk home to Brooklyn.) It's amazing to compare how the various blackouts reflect the social conditions of their eras.

* I made this bread (substituting a mix of molasses and agave nectar for the honey) and it's delicious.

Do you have any recs for stuff that'll distract me from spoilers? Please share. :)

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Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with America? Bet you a million dollars they change the ending to make it more palatable to delicate American sensibilities. Just… keep reminding me that it’s going to inspire more people to seek out the real version. (*clutches John Simm*)

Some cheery things to scrub this travesty from my mind:

* versaphile wrote Subterranean, a beautiful coda which made me feel somewhat better about the most recent Doctor Who episode. (She’s also posting a new chapter of the amazing Praxis every week, which just gets better and better.)

* violet_lane wrote absolutely wonderful meta about Rose Tyler. She pretty much gets to the heart of what I love about Rose: that she’s the rare female character who undergoes a true hero’s journey, and that her heroism is due to her own choices, not any kind of special destiny. (And that she lives her life fully: she’s impulsive, adventurous, strong-willed, makes her own decisions, has fun, and sees the beauty of the universe along with the monsters.) It’s a long post, but completely worth the read.

* There are a hell of a lot of awesome Doctor/Master porn writers out there; I’m impressed by the quality of most of the responses at the best_enemies anon porn meme.

* Look how adorable young Stephen Colbert is! (Not that he isn’t still adorable now.)

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I’m writing a freaking essay in response to “Planet of the Ood.” One of these days I’ll actually manage to post the damn thing. Meanwhile…

versaphile wrote a great post about why Jack Harkness is a villain.

A rec: Paleolinguistics (The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Remix) by kindkit. An insightful and beautifully written Doctor/Master fic.

And on tonight’s Colbert Report…

( Colbert Report spoilers )

( personality test meme )

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I probably shouldn’t have posted my “Fires of Pompeii” review at midnight on Sunday night. Alas, it gave me so much to think about that I just couldn’t sleep until I wrote it all down.

jaydk and I had a lot of fun watching it; we managed three viewings, plus the commentary and the Confidential (OMG tourist!Tennant! In shorts! And he’s such a liberal! Awww.) And somehow we also managed to squeeze in the first couple episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures and the horrid 1996 Doctor Who TV movie.

( The Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion of the Bane and Revenge of the Slitheen )

( The Doctor Who 1996 TV Movie )

( a couple more thoughts on Doctor Who 4x01: Partners in Crime )

And here's a fic rec: a Doctor/Rose fic that I didn't hate! The Scientist by orange_crushed, which has a Doctor and Rose that I actually find recognizable and interesting! No tiembabies or weddings, but a genuine exploration of what they mean to each other. Plus, plot and action! (And, I admit, I particularly love that it starts out shattering the cliche by having Rose "married" to human!Doctor and ... she's miserable. Heee.)

That said, when the Master showed up, I was very disappointed that he didn't have sex with the Doctor. *sigh* I need more Doctor/Master fic! Look at this, I've been reduced to reading het! :P

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* This is the kind of misogyny that gives me a headache. Because no one could POSSIBLY BE INTERESTED in a woman over thirty-five? And yet, y’know, we have men over thirty-five ALL OVER OUR TELEVISIONS in MANY DIFFERENT ROLES. But Donna! The horror! How could anyone relate!? *rolls eyes*

* paratti’s reaction post to “Partners in Crime” was a nice antidote to the above. As she points out, Doctor Who has some of the best female characters in television.

* David Tennant is the most awesome celebrity ever. *adores*

* I am enjoying Spoiled for Choice by x_losfic. It’s an interesting exploration of the Doctor/Master relationship, with some really excellent dialogue between the two.

* versaphile’s Praxis is KILLING ME OMG. The latest chapter! *hides under the bed and is afraid to come out* (*and yet can’t wait for the next part*)

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Have you guys read The Man Who Lived by chase820 and mustangsally78?

I don’t usually read Harry Potter fic, but I gave this one a chance because I love the authors. It’s adult Harry and Draco, branching off from book six into a dystopic future AU. And it’s really cool and angsty and dark.

Um, and my favorite part is that they wrote an awesome OC based on an amalgamation of David Tennant characters. *is such a dork*

Anyway. It’s really good. Go, read!

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I'm not in a good mood today.

But...

    * Picspam of John Simm as the Master
    * New chapter of versaphile's Ten/Master epic

*remembers what I like about Doctor Who fandom*

*cheers up*

Fic rec: A nifty Doctor and Donna adventure, Leap in the Dark by nonelvis. This is the kind of story that could easily be an episode. It uses time travel in an original way, plus has a really cool setting and great characterizations of the Doctor and Donna.

***

Happy Birthday, jaydk!

Tonight, we're going to see Patrick Stewart in "Macbeth." I am super excited. :)

We had another Doctor Who night on Saturday, in which we watched:

* ( the latest Torchwood )

* ( more Old Who )

* ( The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit )

***

I'm finally finishing my re-read of Dorothy Dunnett's Queens Play. (I know, it's been months. I've been reading in tiny increments on the subway). And it finally hit me that ( spoiler for entire Lymond Chronicles )

***

Also, ( a meme with a rather amusing result )

versaphile is finally posting the Doctor/Master epic she's been teasing about for ages. Chapter one is here.

And if you didn't see it: she also made a Doctor/Master archive! My plan for the weekend is to scour that place for fic I haven't read yet. >:)

(How much do I love that the show canonically gives us the set up of the Master keeping the Doctor prisoner for a year? And gives us the set up of the Doctor "settling down and caring for" the Master? No wonder there's such good fic about those two.)

Today sucks. Evil web clients are being even more evil than usual. Nothing is more annoying than building a beautiful website only to be ordered to deface it hideously by a client with no aesthetic sense. I WANNA GO HOME. *is happy it's Friday*

The neighborhood cat just showed up to sprawl on my desk and drool on everything. Right now he is the only thing I like about this job.

I've concluded that it's time for a vacation. I'm thinking... warm air, sunlight, beach. Maybe Florida? Unfortunately, Spring Break is coming up and I'm sure everyone is thinking the same. I suppose it could be fun to go anyway; just take a three day weekend, find some slightly falling apart but adequate hotel on a beach somewhere, and sprawl in the sun with a book for three days. It could work.

I finally caught up with all of the Daily Show and Colbert Report episodes since January. You know how I said I was over Jon Stewart? That fit of insanity has passed. I do read the news in, y'know, newspapers and everything, but somehow none of it feels real until I see Stewart and Colbert mock it.

(What was with Howard Dean's flirty goodbye to Stephen the other night? I laughed for five minutes straight.)

Doctor Who series four spoilers keep coming out, with all the associated wank. It's hard to bring myself to care; I'm already pretty sure I'm going to get what I want, which is ( not really spoilery, but just in case )

It's time for a new order of BPAL imps, and I've found eight that I really want. I need to narrow it down to six. Anyone have any advice (recs or anti-recs) on any of these?

( I'm in a vanilla mood: Belle Epoque, Eclipse, Golden Priapus, Antique Lace, Peitho, Mouse's Long And Sad Tale, Lyonesse, and Tamora )

I made a deal with myself that if I finished three freelance projects this weekend, I'd reward myself by watching State of Play.

Unfortunately I only finished two, so no State of Play yet. I am the best procrastinator in the world. Among the things that distracted me from work:

* Barrowman/Tennant/(Gill) RPS from versaphile. (...jkljefioajkjklfdlefj... *ded from pr0n*)

* BtVS/Doctor Who crossover from rat_hospital. Giles is no match for the Master.

* Harry Potter/Doctor Who crossover from sheepybunbuns. Doctor/Snape, psychic sex, and Snape has lot in common with the Master. What more could you ask for in a fic?

* I finally finished The Pandora Project by calapine. It's a thirteen part Doctor/Master AU featuring pirates and a giant vampire squid. You can't really go wrong there.

* A gen fic with good Tenth Doctor characterization. Kind of depressing how rare that is.

* And then, right in the middle of getting actual work done, I was suddenly seized with the urgent need for an LJ icon of Stephen Colbert as a pirate. So I hunted down the video, took screencaps, spent an hour fiddling with them in Photoshop... and concluded that all the icons I'd made were ugly and that I didn't really need a Colbert!pirate icon anyway. Like I said, best procrastinator in the world.

Also there's this: ElJay continues to prove its utter incomprehension of the community that lives on its servers. Here's more crap to opt out of.

Oh, Torchwood fandom. You do know how to bring the wank.

Have I mentioned recently that Neil Gaiman is awesome?

And yes, I proudly admit that I'm watching Torchwood S1 for the sole purpose of laughing at how awful it is. Why? Because it's funny.

***

Does anyone have recommendations for Tenth Doctor fanfiction that is just really well-written? Any pairing, rating, or genre, but no agenda (other than exploring the characters and/or telling an interesting story)?

I've been venturing beyond my comfy little Ten/Master niche, and ... maybe I'm looking in the wrong places? Because if it's not blatant shipper!fic, it's like that one episode of South Park where Cartman makes a list of all the rotten things he's done in previous episodes and then goes around trying to make amends. Only instead of Butters making a list of all Cartman's sins, it's Rose/Jack/Martha/Mary Sue, and instead of Cartman apologizing in order to weasel his way into heaven, the Doctor does it in order to win his way back into the author's good graces (or maybe because she just wants to see him grovel).

The problem with "fixing" the characters is that ... then they're no longer the characters I love. *snuggles delightfully fucked-up favorite characters*

Here's a good one jaydk recced: The Man With No Name by Frostfyre7. It's a Doctor Who/Firefly crossover, gen except for some Mal/Inara (which I skimmed). Not as dark as I prefer, but it's got good characterization and a nice adventure story; it kept me entertained and I never got the urge to bang my head against the desk.

***

Tonight: Marilyn Manson! Twiggy's back! I know this band has been washed up for at least eight years, but... nostalgia! *is inordinately excited*

The big question: should I Goth it up for old times' sake, or admit that I'm a grown-up now and go the lazy jeans and t-shirt route?

***

And apparently Stone Temple Pilots are reuniting. Nifty! (As long as they don't take my Velvet Revolver away....)

Should I watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles? I almost never watch TV shows as they air unless I know that they've already managed to pull off at least one decent season. But Sarah Connor is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters, and The Terminator is in my list of top five movies of all time. (I'm one of those freaks who prefers the original to the sequel; it's just so raw. And it's infiltrated my subconscious to the point where I have nightmares about being chased by the Terminator on a regular basis.) I'm kind of freaked out that Linda Hamilton isn't in it, although I understand that wouldn't really work because of the age issue. And I'm glad that the character, and the whole fictional world, is having a life beyond its original writers and actors. So. Is it worth watching, or am I just going to end up ranting about how disappointing it is?

I'm kind of boggled that so many of my friends are getting into Torchwood. I mean, yes, there's bisexuality, but the show is so badly written. I'm just hoping that people will follow the Torchwood trail back to Doctor Who, and see how much better that show is, and discover the slashtastic awesomeness of the Doctor and the Master.

Today's fic recs:

John Simm did an interview in which he confessed to having worked as a cage dancer when he was young and needed the money. No, seriously! So versaphile wrote fic in which a young inexperienced David Tennant meets cagedancer!Simm. And then they have some of the hottest sex I've ever read. And the end almost made me cry. Read it here: Kiss Me Quick.

versaphile also wrote more Doctor/Master. (versaphile, I swear I am not stalking you. I just kind of want to live inside of your brain.) Three for a Wedding. It's actually Doctor/Master and Doctor/TARDIS, and it's extremely disturbing, but it's the good kind of disturbing.

yahtzee63 wrote The Yankee's Loot, in which the Tenth Doctor picks up Scarlett O'Hara as a companion. And it works, brilliantly, because she perfectly captures Scarlett's inner voice. That woman is a sociopathic megalomaniac, and somehow you can't help but love her. I'd never have imagined that these two fandoms could be combined, but Yahtzee makes it work.

Here's another Life on Mars fic that I greatly enjoyed. It's like an episode--70s police show plot, entertaining dialog--just with the bonus of gay sex. You wouldn't think those things would blend together so well, but, obviously, they do. (Sorry, I know there's tons of slashy police show fandoms out there, I've just never been into one before.)

I've been following the metafandom discussions about the Organization for Transformative Works, and I continue to think that it's awesome. One of the things that boggles me about the internet is that people just take for granted that things disappear. You can read a story that's stunning, life-changing, brilliant, and then look it up one morning and find that it's completely gone.

( here is me rambling on about the OTW, as if you haven't read enough about it already )